Leni had never seen one of his kind in person before, but she knew about the Breed. She knew enough to realize that the sheer size of him and the density and complexity of theglyphstracking over his large hands and wrists meant the rest of him was sure to be covered in them too.
Which meant this male had to be almost pure-blooded, one of the most powerful, most lethal, of his race.
He retrieved some folded money from the inside pocket of his parka and peeled off a twenty. “I won’t stay long,” he said, pushing the bill to the edge of the metal-rimmed laminate table. “I just needed to get out of the cold for a while.”
Leni stared into those turbulent blue eyes, astonished. Not only because she was having a conversation with a vampire in her diner, but because aside from the fact that he could take whatever he wanted from anyone he pleased—including their lives—he was sitting there offering to pay for a few minutes of kindness and consideration.
She shook her head. “Keep your money. Stay as long as you like.”
As she spoke, the low diesel growl of an approaching heavy-duty pickup truck grew louder outside the restaurant. The black truck was rigged with a large snowplow blade tonight and had its lights set on bright. The twin beams sliced through the downpour of heavy flakes, practically blinding Leni through the window as the driver pulled into the middle of two open spaces out front.
Damn. Just what she didn’t need.
Frowning, she bit back a groan. She’d gone the whole day without seeing the two men who climbed out of the truck. If she went the rest of her life without having to deal with Dwight Parrish or any of the rest of his clan, it would be too soon for her liking.
The Parrish family had been running this unincorporated patch of timbered, north country land for generations, longer than the state had been part of the Union. Over time, their line had thinned along with the fortune the earliest Parrishes had made in logging and fur trading. But the name still carried a lot of weight in the village and the surrounding townships, and there were few, if any, who dared to get on the bad side of old Enoch Parrish or his sons, Dwight, Jeb, and Travis.
Unfortunately, Leni was one of those few, although there wasn’t a hell of a lot she could do about it.
The front door swung wide as Dwight and another local man, Frank Garland, came in and stomped off their snowy boots inside the diner. Assholes.
Leni’s irritation must have been written on her face. When she glanced back at the Breed male seated in the booth, he was watching her. “Everything okay?”
“Just the usual.” She forced a pleasant smile to her lips. “Like I said, take your time. Let me know if you need anything, all right?”
He gave her a vague nod before his hawklike stare swung to the pair of men now strolling up to the counter to chew the fat with the handful of customers seated there.
Dwight Parrish smacked his palm against the countertop, then his cigarette-roughened voice boomed over the rest of the diner. “What the hell’s a person gotta do to get a cup of coffee in this place?”
CHAPTER 2
Knox hadn’t arrived in the far-flung little village by choice. Probably not many people did. He’d only been in town for a few minutes, long enough to get the sense it wasn’t a place that saw a lot of strangers—least of all, ones with fangs andglyphslike him.
If it hadn’t been for the raging blizzard and a long-haul trucker with a weak bladder, Knox might still be sitting inside the warmth of a semi-trailer cab heading north on I-95. But when the ride he’d hitched in New Hampshire let him off several hours into Maine at a truck stop in Medway, his options were to either hunker down through the worst of the storm and the daylight to come, or keep moving. After five solid months of roaming and the occasional job since he left the only semblance of home he ever knew in Florida, Knox was no good at staying put.
He hadn’t been for a long time.
Eight years and counting.
Not since Abbie.
He’d allowed himself to weaken where she was concerned, but no more. Not ever again. Now, he kept his life simple and devoid of emotional entanglements of any kind.
No obligations to anyone or anything.
As long as he kept moving, as long as he stayed inside the guardrails of his own discipline and the training that had made him a Hunter, one of the most lethal members of his kind, there was no time to think about what he’d lost. No room for pain or anguish. Or guilt.
So when the choice came down to cooling his heels for a few hours near the Interstate or hoofing deeper into the north country along the two-lane out of town, he’d chosen the latter. Thirty miles in, the picturesque but arduous trek had become largely uninhabited, other than a smattering of old farmhouses and mobile homes. He guessed he’d gone about twice that distance before he saw the dim glow of light coming from the diner a dozen yards on the other side of a weathered wooden road sign declaring he had just entered Parrish Falls.
He supposed he’d keep roaming along that same stretch of unpaved two-lane once he got back outside, possibly venture into Canada and see where the road took him from there.
The pretty brunette who’d offered him coffee and a hot meal before realizing what he was had mentioned that the border—and the promise of civilization—was roughly a hundred miles out by vehicle. Being Breed, he could cover that distance far faster on foot. Especially in weather like tonight’s.
He had to admit, after nearly freezing his balls off in the blizzard, the idea of finding a soft bed and a warm, willing blood Host to take the itch out of his fangs and the other equally demanding part of his anatomy was a tempting one.
Those competing hungers pulled his gaze to the long, denim-clad legs currently walking away from his booth. In addition to having the loveliest, most honest face he’d seen in weeks, the brunette had a confident, direct demeanor and a smooth, slightly husky voice that had rubbed over his senses like velvet. And her list of assets didn’t stop there. Tall and curvy, she had generous hips and a small waist that not even her baggy plaid flannel shirt could conceal. Thick dark hair that Knox guessed would probably fall halfway down her back was scraped off her neck in a loose knot on top of her head.
It had been all he could do to hold back his fangs as he’d stared at the bared column of her throat while she’d talked with him at his table. He’d gone a day or three too long without feeding, but it wasn’t only the thought of her fresh red cells on his tongue that had his veins going tight as he continued to watch her now.
